World

ByCompiled from wire service reports by Robert KilbornJune 5, 2008

Water building up behind China's most dangerous "quake lake" is within eight feet of the top of the landslide blocking it, reports said Wednesday. An aftershock from the May 12 temblor could breach the blockade at any time, imperiling more than 1 million people downstream, authorities said. The lake is estimated to hold enough water to fill more than 80,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

A motorcade carrying opposition presidential candidateMorgan Tsvangirai was stopped and searched by police in central Zimbabwe Wednesday, and he was taken to a nearby station, aides said. At last word, he had not been charged with any offense. Opposition campaign rallies have been banned, so Tsvangirai has been touring the country to meet voters individually before facing incumbent Robert Mugabe in a runoff election June 27.

Eighteen people were hurt in another bombing of a passenger train in Sri Lanka's capital. Suspicion immediately fell on Tamil separatist rebels, although they usually deny involvement in such attacks. Wednesday's casualty count might have been higher if the train hadn't just passed the point where the bomb was hidden by the tracks, police said. On May 26, a commuter train bombing killed nine people and wounded 73 others.

Police in Jakarta, Indonesia, raided the headquarters of a hard-line Muslim organization Wednesday and detained 59 of its members for questioning after a violent attack on an interfaith rally last weekend. The Islamic Defenders Front, which claims tens of thousands of members, has a lengthy record of such attacks. The rally, aimed at promoting religious tolerance, was attended by moderate Muslims and Christians.

Intense behind-the-scenes discussions were being held Wed-nesday in Northern Ireland to avert a new political crisis as Protestant First Minister Ian Paisley prepared to retire from his office. Sinn Fein, the Catholic partner in the power-sharing government, has refused to say whether it will block the election of Paisley's would-be successor, Peter Robinson of the Democratic Unionist Party. It could do so legally by declining to renominate his deputy, Martin McGuinness, leaving both posts unfilled. On his final day in office, Paisley said such a move would be "evil" and would risk bringing the province "back to the bad old days."

Over the protests of Bangladesh's political parties, another 1,700 people were arrested in an anticrime campaign by the military-backed government Wednesday, bringing the total to more than 10,000. The parties say many of the detainees are their members and that the campaign is politically motivated. Police say it's intended to improve security before the national election scheduled for December.

By a 27-vote margin, Canada's Parliament approved a motion to grant asylum to US soldiers who refuse deployment to Iraq. The vote evoked memories of the Vietnam War era, when Canada welcomed thousands of draft dodgers from across the border. But Tuesday's vote was nonbinding, and so far asylum-seekers from the US have had their appeals denied.

Illegal loggers and others will be prevented from encroaching on the area of a previously unknown Amazon tribe that was discovered recently, authorities in Peru said. But while hailing the pledge, international tribal-support organizations warned that the Peruvian government will have to act quickly to implement it before the tribe is exposed to potentially fatal confrontations with outsiders. The tribe, whose name isn't known, appears to live along the Peruvian-Brazilian border.